Dev Tracker - Discussion

If you have something positive to announce, you announce it.

If you don't, you talk about "opportunity" and "experiences".

Its not so much that this statement reeks of "maintenance mode- abandon all hope ye who enter here", its just that nothing positive or concrete was said regarding the game future. Just platitudes and fill words.

I mean, I certainly read that as a concrete plan.

"We're going to let XI team members do stints in other parts of the company so they don't leave. If they leave, we can't ever have them do anything on XI ever again, whereas if we let them work on semi-modern stuff they will stay and maybe learn some things they can bring back here."

As far as "announced game content deliverables", sure, nothing there, but the fact that they have a plan to keep the staff around means they're not mothballing the project. Like, I don't think we're going to get anything major beyond what's already announced, but this is a totally reasonable plan of action that gives them potential future flexibility.

I ASSURE YOU I HAVE SEEN WORSE PLANS FROM ENGINEERING ORGANIZATIONS

That's all we've gotten in the last couple of years.

And really, we had to have known this was coming. They've already canned most of their studios, shut down every single Live Service they were running, and pulled funding from XIV (and possibly other ongoing projects like VII-R) so they can double-down on their Blockchain projects.

We knew that Matsui had 3 years (or whatever) of contractually-guaranteed funding to see The Voracious Resurgence through and was up for renewal this year. Leadership wholeheartedly believes that video games cannot be profitable, so we had to expect XI wasn't going to get renewed after all that.

For the company and their employees currently on this project, definitely agree (and wholeheartedly agreed with the rest of your comments I didn't quote). For XI? I don't think its a fair assessment to call it that.

Don't get me wrong- I'll be among the bunch to clutch on to the final death gasps of XI til I go to Misereaux Coast on RDM with my fishin' pole when they shut it all down...I'm not trying to either complain or doomsay, more just


I more fear such announcements like this push current players who were debating whether to hang around or leave away faster, that's really the only concern/negativity I have regarding the announcement. As Jessikah said, anyone paying attention knew this was always the endgame for XI, and that our obsession with XI had already saved it more times than SE ever intended.

What I do hope comes of all this is a platform where the currently existing content just WORKS and things are stable for as long as SE wants to keep the power on. I'm hoping the long-term result isn't the end of any new content, just more of a pause for a year+, where they can evaluate again. What I would hate is just a sudden notice that FFXI service will terminate in 30 days or some crap. The decision to make any kind of upgrade to XI's hardware, beneficial or not to performance, at least show shows me that is now less likely.

I honestly can't see anything happening to XI anytime in the near future. New content or not, I can see the servers staying lit for another 5-10 years easy. The reduced manpower and back-end hardware is going to keep this game profitable until there's fewer than a couple hundred subs.

Folks are still joining for the story, and there's always just something to play around with in XI.

Not that I'm holding my breath, but we've already gotten one resurgence after a maintenance mode announcement, so it's not completely impossible we'll see another.

I'm sad to see Matsui go, but this doesn't strike me as a doomsday scenario. Some of their language implies we will still be getting updates, albeit on a slower schedule than we have the past 5 or so years. Fujito outright says the current FFXI dev team will continue to support the game, just sounds like they'll have a bit more freedom to participate in other projects as well. That is good for them and I'm happy for their career prospects as a result.

It sounds like they have multiple master trails planned for implementation in 2023, and if they add some battle content next month with the ending of TVR to hold us over for the remainder of the year, I'd be fine with that. It is also possible we don't get any substantial battle content aside from an ending big battle for TVR. Just have to wait and see.

Another source of optimism is Fujito's ending words at least attempt to quell any doomsday thoughts the player base might be having and invites us to ask him questions about FFXI's future for a reply in a future FPV broadcast. I'm not sure they'd be open to answering questions if they didn't have anything good to say.

That was a big reason I hated so much on things that cut at the bottom line for the game. Not to put a tin foil hat on but I can't imagine anything drawing players away from XI and hurting its bottom line, to be a benefit in a meeting where they are crunching after so many losses and looking where they can cut back. They are probably in real problems atm, I have never seen a triple A game get discounted almost half off a month after launch... They even have those games in scrap heaps and garbage dumps, pretty crazy.

XI always did get the worst brunt of these type of cut backs, hopefully it can pull thru. I just don't see the announcement as anything positive, but I can hope that further down the line when things normalize we can maybe get new stuff. This also just gives more fuel to the haters of retail, of course all the news articles are going crazy with it like always.

Can't believe people are paying $20+ for this game now. They could drop to 12.99 and I'd play till the end. 20+ is just insulting.

I'll tell you a few jokes for $20 a month then. Your bank wont feel it at all. Also, my cousin has a few jokes only cost $30 a month, and his cousin too. We all think $10-$20 a month for each of us is perfect for your monthly budget. 1st month free.

You do know your post history is available for everyone to see. You'd have to pay the audience to show up for your jokes if that's any basis of your content.

And? This topic is this topic. Dying FFXI for $50 a month apparently.

Most players spend 100+$ to pay for all the quad/6th boxing accounts.

You're not including all the beverages at $12 a pop to get through the night of your "jokes".

Damn maybe I should get in this comedian business.

Lol a whole 8 dollars is stopping him from enjoying it. These are probably the same ppl that "donate" to streamers to see their name on the screen and get attention. Everything has a monthly cost now

There are people who whale a bunch of online games, and in some cases they can spend hundreds of dollars a month. If it's their passion and their hobby who's to say that's money badly spent? There are so many games with loot box systems and microtransactions on top of monthly subs nowadays you can't even begin to scratch the surface of it all, and many of them are dozens of times worse than the cash shop in final fantasy 14 (cough *diabloimmortalhearthstoneleagueoflegendsdota2fortnightfarmvilleetcetcetc* cough). Who are we to judge how someone allocates their money to their free time? As long as it's responsible spending and not breaking the rules (I don't advocate RMT here), then I just say whatever to it all. There are people who spend hundreds of dollars for a shot or $1,000's of dollars for a bottle of the highest end alcohol products. Worth as a concept is up to the individual to decide.

It's not hard to spend more than a dozen or two worth of subs in a single evening going out, or maybe even better said, a weekend, so it comes down to how much you value your entertainment, very few things will get you the density of entertainment FFXI does, but it's also not everyone's forte, and whether we are disgusted by the idea or not, there is a finite amount of time it will go on for - coming from someone who plays many many characters.

The argument has been made over and over and over with the same arguments over and over... the value of the subscription... there might as well be some copy/paste in there.

No denying the ffxi value part is going down irregardless of your wealth or free time. Not judging people, judging SE's value given.

Perhaps Fujito will finally revisit the idea of a combined XI/XIV sub.

With this announcement, both of SE's MMOs are looking at a bit of a content drought starting at the end of the year. XIV is predicted to have no major content released between October/November of this year and the launch of the next expansion sometime in Spring/Summer 2024. What better time to garner a little goodwill by bundling the subs?

I'd certainly appreciate it.

I know a few people who would play xi again if they bundled the subs

They've already bundled the dev teams, so they might as well do the same with the sub.

Me

You have to remove variables to solve for value, especially if you're trying to generalize.


FFXI's service has not been comparable to what other similar MMOs provide for some time now. We were already used to getting less for our money. Going forward, we will be getting even less service for the same cost so the value continues to diminish.


XI is still my favorite MMO. I will still continue to play and enjoy it despite it's reduced value, but I won't act like that's not what's happening here...

Small thing here, but SE has 3 MMOs. Although the same does seem to apply here. They're finishing version 6 for DQX this year, patch 6.4 was released last month, and they haven't announced version 7 yet. Earlier in interviews they mentioned that 2023 would mostly be a year of preparation and development, so I'm guessing v7 is unlikely for 2023.

There is also the point that the base subscription price hasn't changed in over a decade. While we're getting less for our money, we haven't been susceptible to the pains of inflation in XI when it comes to subscription costs.

No, the fact that the average player isn't paying for just the base sub any more isn't a valid contradiction. Additional services were offered (wardrobes), and those cost more, that's it.